Contemporary Perspectives Through Action Research Across Educational Disciplines

The K-12 Classroom

Edited by:
Nancy T. Nasr, Independent Scholar
Jill Alexa Perry, University of Pittsburgh; and the Carnegie Project on the Education Doctorate (CPED)

A volume in the series: Contemporary Perspectives Through Action Research Across Educational Disciplines. Editor(s): Nancy T. Nasr, Independent Scholar. Jill Alexa Perry, University of Pittsburgh; and the Carnegie Project on the Education Doctorate (CPED).

Published 2023

The mission of the Action Research Across Educational Disciplines series is to present targeted volumes of action research findings from a wide variety of educational settings. Specifically, this series aims to highlight the issues that commonly impact practitioners, counselors, administrators, and other stakeholders in education.

The rationale for such a series comes from the continually evolving educational landscape, resulting from changing student demographics and societal needs. To face the contemporary issues that surface as a result of this changing educational landscape, educators must prepare for and lead through the change with an intent on overcoming these issues through improvements to their daily practice. As many educators are left without tools or resources to make a stronger impact in their educational contexts, this series will serve as a mentor text that provides examples of studies undertaken by practitioners using action research to improve their practice. As a result, Action Research Across Educational Disciplines will present the tools and findings associated with action research to educators across the broad field of K-12 education, and beyond, wishing to improve and transform their practice.

This first volume of the Action Research Across Educational Disciplines series presents action research findings from a wide variety of K-12 disciplinary settings. In doing so, the first volume of this series aims to highlight the issues that commonly impact practitioners in K-12 STEM, English, Social Science, and even Art classrooms, and illustrate the solutions proposed in these contexts to improve both educator practice and student achievement. Through the use of action research methodologies to address such issues, volume one of this series offers a resource for improving educational practice across diverse K-12 contexts.

CONTENTS
Action Research as a Tool of Empowerment for the K–12 Practitioner, Nancy T. Nasr. Crafting Science Experiences: Combining High School Ceramics and Chemistry for Academic Achievement, Maggie Leysath and Chad Bronowski. The Impact of Drama Pedagogy on English Student Achievement, Attitude, and Empathy, Deborah J. Gascon. Influencing Young Women to Pursue Creative Information Technology Careers, Michele Mosco and Audrey Amrein-Beardsley. High School Social Studies Teachers’ Perceptions and Practices Using the Workshop Model, Joseph P. Marangell. Exploring Epistemological Change Through the Use of the Next Generation Science Standards in the High School Chemistry Classroom, Nancy T. Nasr. Designing and Teaching a Local History Curriculum to Promote Culturally Relevant Pedagogies in Middle Grades Social Studies, Katherine Perrotta and Karyn A. Allee. The Impact of a Science Fair on the High School Students’ Feelings of Self-Efficacy in STEM, Nathaniel P. Wharton. Socially Just Artmaking: A Practitioner’s Inquiry of Passionate Teaching for Compassionate Action, Jaime Linn Brown. About the Contributors.